Delicacy- David Foenkinos
Reminiscent of novels by Nick Hornby, Muriel Barbery, and Jonathan Tropper, internationally acclaimed novelist David Foenkinos delivers a heartfelt and deftly comedic tale of new love brightening the dark aftermath of loss—and of wounded hearts finding refuge in the strangest of places. After her husband’s unexpected death, Natalie has erected a fortress around her emotions—and Markus, clumsy and unassuming, will never be her knight in shining armor. Yet slowly but surely, an offbeat romance begins between these two mismatched, complex souls, and contrary to everything Natalie knows of affection, her perfect suitor may turn out to be love’s most unlikely candidate—the fool, not the hero, who is finally able to reach her heart.
OK, so this book clocks in at an easy 250 pages but the cool thing? Is that there are 115 chapters. Yeah, you read that right. What makes this kind of a genius idea is that you can't stop at one chapter- you can easily read 20 chapters and feel like you are sailing through this book.
This book was originally written in French and translated to English which is kind of obvious in some parts when you read it. People don't speak, let alone write, the way the words are written in the book and I'm sure that's because of translation. The other thing is that I don't know if any other reviewers noticed this, but there is WEIRD punctuation in this book- periods where there should be commas and vice versa, which makes it hard to read in some areas. Basically, this means I had to re-read some passages again because I had a hard time understanding it.
The story itself is like any other story about a wife losing her husband and then falling in love with the unassuming character in her life. We've all seen movies and read books with the same story line and I didn't feel there was anything different about this story to make it stand out from all of those. But I will say is that I think sometimes as women (OK, and sometimes this is men too) get so fixated on their list of qualities they have to have in a partner that they overlook the obvious. So maybe the person you're overlooking doesn't have it all, maybe he has a receding hairline, a shitty job, or maybe she has a moustache- whatever. Just because they aren't ideally perfect according to your list doesn't mean they couldn't make you happy. I think that was the biggest thing to take away from this book is that often times it's the person you give no thought to that ends up being the one who really is perfect despite their imperfections.
Check out what other bloggers are saying about this book here. In the meantime, I actually have two copies of this book because I am an idiot. Why? Because a lot of times I pick out books to review months in advance, and then forget about it. Then I go online and buy books for cheap and think, "hey- I wanted to read that" and forget that I'm getting a review copy eventually, so I buy it. Then I often end up with two. Because I am an idiot. So as is the case with another book in a few weeks, I have an extra copy and one of you will win it.
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7 comments:
I'd read this one thanks!
Margaret
singitm(at)hotmail(dot)com
Sounds like a good book. I think those that look for perfect will only be disappointed. I like a guy with a few flaws. It makes him real. Otherwise we're just living in some fantasy world that doesn't exist.
I follow of course :) momtaxijulie@yahoo.com
BTW I never got that other book
I'm a follower! Gimmie :)
I shared on twitter
Oooh sounds like a fun read.
sarasou2006(at)gmail(dot)com
115 chapters?! What a fun way to feel like I'm really breezing through a book!
Thanks for being on the tour!
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